Misconceptions

Even though people can come from different cities (or even states) and still speak the same way, they all have different little words that they use to describe things. They also have different pronunciations for other words.

We interviewed as many people as we could, and somewhat unsurprisingly, we found that not everyone from the city speaks the same way – and we found the same thing on campus at Ball State University. The university campus also functions like a small city, just like Indianapolis. And just like any city, there are people from further north who speak in a slightly different dialect who view the other students as being southern. The strangest part about this is that the northern students are the minority.


There was also a study that took place in Georgia by Davis and Houck that charted high correlations between lexical items of the same meaning and the usage rate against the distance south. When we say lexical items we mean words specific or related to a region.

This effect can be seen across the midland, but Deena Fogle made an interesting point that relates directly to Indianapolis. Fogle stated that people who live in a large town or city have an increased potential to retain a separate dialect from the surrounding areas. This is so applicable to Indianapolis because its metropolis seems to sit as an island compared to the rest of Indiana that seems desolate farmland in comparison.


Sources